Lobbyist was in eye of scandal hurricane

7 Aug 2006 // Buffalo's D.C. lobbyist had a front-row seat to the biggest Capitol Hill scandal in decades and he says he didn't see a thing.

G. Patrick Gould, a paid representative of the city and several other local interests, spent nearly two years as a partner of Michael Scanlon, who has pleaded guilty to bilking Indian tribes out of $40 million in a scheme involving now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

According to documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Gould received at least $225,000 from his partnership with Scanlon.

However, prosecutors have not implicated Gould in the plot Scanlon and Abramoff hatched to swindle Indian tribes of huge lobbying fees and court powerful figures such as then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Instead, Gould earned his keep by tending to his Buffalo-area clients and said he never noticed the scandal unfolding at the company that bore his name.

"A lot of this I learned as the average reader of the Washington Post would have learned it," Gould said. "I did none of the work for the tribes."

The Senate report on the scandal never implicated Gould. His name doesn't appear in Scanlon's plea deal or in Abramoff's. And other sources close to the situation confirmed that Gould did not do work for Scanlon's Indian clients.

In any case, the affiliation with Scanlon hasn't hurt Gould's lobbying business in Buffalo.

His current company, Capitol Partners, receives $5,000 a month from the city. Capitol Partners collected about $500,000 from the Erie County Water Authority in about two years as its lobbyist.

Nevertheless, Gould said his association with Scanlon "hurt me more than it helped me," which is why he regrets bumping into Scanlon on the steps of the House Longworth Building in the spring of 2001.

Gould knew Scanlon from their days working together at the National Association of Home Builders in the 1990s. And on that day five years ago, Gould started his Buffalo-centered lobbying operation after leaving a job with the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

Scanlon, a boyish, frenetically energetic young Republican who previously served as DeLay's spokesman, was looking for a Democratic partner. And he found one in Gould, then a quiet young Democratic operative schooled at the feet of a South Buffalo legend, former House Doorkeeper Jim Molloy.

"Going with a guy like Scanlon seemed like a good relationship for Pat to strike," said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, a friend of Gould's since childhood. "These are all temporary relationships of convenience."

Scanlon Gould Public Affairs concentrated on getting federal money for clients while working "under the canopy" of Scanlon's larger firm, Capitol Campaign Strategies, Gould said. Gould was a partner in name only, a paid employee with a $150,000 annual salary and no ownership interest.

"I was taking the benefit of the name," Gould said. "That was my equity."

What a name it was. Scanlon had contacts all across D.C. thanks to his ties to DeLay and a big reputation as a take-no-prisoners political operative.

Scanlon got into the new and burgeoning field of lobbying for Indian tribes rich with casino money.

Gould focused on getting federal aid for Buffalo, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, the Water Authority and other local interests.

Scanlon and Gould had a couple meetings together with potential clients late in 2001, but Gould said they quickly went their separate ways while working out of the same Capitol Hill townhouse.

And unannounced to Gould, Scanlon had entered a secret partnership with a prominent Republican lobbyist that Gould recalls meeting just once: Jack Abramoff.

Under the Abramoff/Scanlon scheme, Abramoff recommended Scanlon's firm to tribes in Louisiana, Texas and Michigan that wanted to protect their casinos from competition.

Federal prosecutors say Scanlon engineered public relations campaigns for the tribes, grossly overcharged them, and then kicked back half of his fees to Abramoff. Court documents indicate that Scanlon and Abramoff both netted about $20 million from the plot.

They seemed rather pleased with their actions, too. For example, the Indian Affairs Committee report cited the following e-mail exchange between Abramoff and Scanlon from February 2002, before their visit with the Tigua Tribe of Texas.

Abramoff: "Fire up the jet baby, we're going to El Paso!"

Scanlon: "I want all their MONEY!!!"

Abramoff: "Yawzah!"

The Senate probe found that the Tigua Tribe paid the Scanlon Gould firm $4.2 million in March 2002. And the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians paid Scanlon Gould $1 million in April 2002 and another $1 million in October of that year.

Asked about those payments, Gould said: "This is the first I heard of that."

Meanwhile, Gould saw his own interests getting short shrift. He said Scanlon apparently ordered the closing of Scanlon Gould's $1,000-a-month Buffalo office in the spring of 2002 to cut costs.

Having not seen Scanlon in six months and wanting to belong to a lobbying firm with a Republican partner who really did the kind of work he wanted to do, Gould left Scanlon's shop and joined Capitol Partners in the spring of 2003.

Gould took his Buffalo-based clients with him, and things went well until late 2003, when he got a call from Susan Schmidt, a Washington Post reporter who later won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Abramoff/Scanlon scandal.

Gould had few answers for her questions. Her first story on the huge Indian lobbying fees appeared in February 2004.

"I was overwhelmed and disappointed at the same time," Gould said. "There was a sense of being let down."

Gould quickly hired Stanley Brand, a top D.C. defense attorney, who prepped him for his interview with the FBI and other federal agents in early 2005.

"They spent six hours rifling questions at me and found I added little or nothing to the investigation," Gould said.

Other sources confirmed that Gould was blindsided by his partner's actions. And the Senate investigators found Gould so irrelevant that they never even interviewed him.

But the feds got the goods on Scanlon. He pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge last November, and Abramoff pleaded guilty two months later. Together they are the central figures in an ongoing probe that could net indictments of several members of Congress who may have taken lavish trips or other favors from Abramoff.

That all seems faraway now to Gould, whose company has managed to add the Peace Bridge Authority and Medaille College to its client list since the Abramoff scandal.

The Peace Bridge Authority researched Gould's background before hiring Capitol Partners and concluded that Gould was unconnected with the scandal, said Ron Reinas, general manager of the agency.

And while former Buffalo Mayor Anthony M. Masiello hired Gould, the new mayor, Byron W. Brown, kept him on.

Capitol Partners is on a month-to-month contract with the city, which is about to open bids on a long-term federal lobbying contract, said Brown's spokesman, Peter Cutler. Gould's firm will be considered for the job.

Gould's reputation on Capitol Hill appears to be mixed, though not merely because of his relationship with Scanlon.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, suspects Gould of leaking secrets of a private meeting.

"He's not welcome in my office," Slaughter said.

Told that Gould appeared to not be involved in the scandal, Slaughter added: "Then he allowed himself to be used. That's not very attractive, either."

Meanwhile, Higgins stands by his old friend.

"He's a guy I know to have tremendous integrity," Higgins said. "He's very respectful of everyone and not at all duplicitous in his loyalties."

As for Gould, he's simply glad that the worst of the Scanlon-Abramoff scandal appears to be over, for him at least.

"This has taken a huge personal toll and a financial toll," he said. "I never knew what was going to come next."